This is probably what the demise of the Hubble Space Telescope was always going to look like: components failing one by one, with no way to replace them. In the last few months, the Hubble has repeatedly gone into safe mode as one of its remaining three gyros keeps giving faulty readings. But the Hubble and the people operating it are resilient and resourceful. The telescope is back to science operations now, though in single gyro mode.
NASA has released the first image the Hubble captured in this mode, and it’s clear that the Hubble is performing well.
Continue reading “Here’s Hubble’s First Image in its New Pointing Mode”